Instant scratch-off lottery tickets are sold at many types of retail locations including, stores, such as grocery stores, general merchandise stores, and the like. Many such stores feature one or more check-out points or lanes equipped with a point-of-sale (POS) register. The lottery tickets, however, are typically sold at a separate lottery point-of-sale terminal within the same retail establishment. This system generally requires additional personnel to staff the lottery ticket POS terminal, or requires the store clerk to divide their time and responsibility between the lottery POS terminal and the store POS terminal. The conventional system and method also require a separate accountability and tracking system for lottery ticket sales, which can add significantly to the cost and burden of providing the lottery to players at the retail establishment.
In addition, because of the current methods by which the tickets are packaged and accounted for, an entire pack (also referred to as a “brick”) of tickets is generally activated upon delivery to the retail establishment. This may result in a billing event to the retailer wherein payment becomes due on the entire pack before any significant number of the tickets have actually been sold, which can be a financial burden on the retailer.
Another problematic situation arises with certain current accountability systems and methods wherein the number of lottery tickets sold during a work shift or other defined time period must be accounted for and reconciled with payments received at the POS register or lottery terminal. Often, this is done by hand by store clerks who record start and end serial numbers of the tickets sold during their shift, which can be prone to human error, particularly in a busy or hectic environment. Systems have been proposed that automatically record the serial numbers and calculate the number of tickets sold, but even these systems do not conduct a balance reconciliation with the POS register.
In addition, instant scratch-off lottery tickets are typically dispensed from an array having a number of different ticket bins, wherein such bins are typically configured to dispense tickets of a given size generally from the same ticket manufacturer. A solution to the issues discussed above should also take into account the drawbacks of conventional dispenser arrays as well. For example, such a solution would be more beneficial if it contemplated a multiple bin array wherein the bins can be configured with the functionality to dispense lottery tickets having distinctly different sizes. Thus, a different array would not be needed for tickets supplied from a different manufacturer or otherwise having different dimensions.
The present invention relates to a unique system and method that addresses at least certain of the issues identified above, and may provide additional benefits over the conventional methodology and systems.